50-50 for Five
by FredNeverDied
Summary: "I refuse to make friends with another cancer kid. There won't be a Five." "Five?" "Five people I've lost 'cause of cancer. Caroline was one; Monica, two; Gus, three." "And now Hazel's four." "Yes ma'am. So I want no Five." Three months after Hazel's death, Isaac returns to Support Group. There's no chance he'll get involved with anyone sick ever again. But then...there was Claire.
1. Chapter 1

So I know that John Green has explicitly said he ended the book where he ended the book for a multitude of good reasons, and that life is not a wish-granting factory, and that horrible thing happen to lovely people, and that marvelous things happen to terrible people, and anything contrary to this rule is unrealistic in portraying reality, and that blights like this set people up to believe that fantasy applies to nonfiction, and they subsequently fall on their faces when let into the Real World, and all that being said, Isaac needs _some semblance of a happy ending_. I probably won't continue this beyond chapter two and I'll leave it at that because...ambiguity. And also because I don't want to beat this to death. But Isaac who believed in 'true love' and 'promises' and 'forever' and was told he would have a life full of beautiful and terrible things that he could not even possibly imagine should, in fact, experience some beautiful and terrible things. And I wanted to read about those things. So I wrote my own version. Thus, _this_.

* * *

_**~50/50 for Five~  
**_  
_Eep_...

'Oh _please_ don't,' I thought. Curled in a fetal position with my arms pulled tight around my chest, stupid tearstains probably still drying on my face, the last thing I needed was—

_Eep, eep_...

'Your timing is impeccable,' I thought, now starting to get angry.  
_  
Eeeep! Eep, eep, eep, eep_...

I groaned aloud and wished for the ten _thousandth_ time that I could glare.

My ceiling fan, after easing its way into rhythm, was making the awful squeaking noise again. It would happen every now and then when it got off its track—it was kind of old after all—and it used to be that I could just throw a ball or a shoe and knock it back on kilter, but my aim had started sucking soon after The Gouge, and never really stopped sucking, even a year and a half later.

To be fair, the squeak itself wasn't so terrible. At least, it hadn't been a year and a half ago. But since my receptive senses had been reduced to a grand total of _four_, hearing being the most prominent of the quad, I was a little more justified in getting annoyed when my main stimulus was a continuous, grating chirp that I had no control over. Also, I was having a decidedly terrible summer.

Rejecting the A and B plans of hurling a sneaker (that would almost certainly miss) or submissively listening to the squeak, I pulled a pillow over my face and curled my body, already rolled up on my bed, into a tighter ball. And yet the noise, though now muffled, was still coming awfully close to being the straw that broke the camel's back.

"Isaac?"

I sighed. That would be my mother, stopping at my door again, as she had done once every other hour, all day, every day, for three months. Her voice was deadened, so I knew she hadn't tried to enter the room. Much as I ought to be taking note of small blessings—at least, that's what the therapists were saying—I didn't really have the heart to be grateful for the privacy.

"Isaac, it's Mom."

"I know."

"It's four-ten Isaac."

"I know."

"It's time...well, it's...support group starts in twenty minutes.

"I know."

"Do you want to go tod—?"

"No thank you."

"But honey—"

"I'm alright Mom, don't worry about it."  
"Isaac." Her voice became clearer and I knew she'd entered the room. As expected, she sighed when she saw me. There was a shuffling and a rustle and then the bed slanted to the side as she sat on the edge of the mattress.

"Isaac, you can't stay tucked in a ball forever."

"Can I play the Ornery Teenager Card and disagree?"

"Only if I get to play the I-Pay-for-Your-Everything-So-Do-What-I-Say Mother Card." I groaned and turned to her, giving her the best eyes-closed-glare I could muster. (Something I've learned since The Gouge: you can be very expressive with just your eyebrows.)

"Wouldn't you think I'm entitled to be like this as long as I want?" I demanded. "Lately, it's been pretty _shitty_ for me, Mom." She made a little noise, probably to object to the swearing, and I said a quick "_Sorry_. But look. Thank you for feeding me, and doing bills, and clothes, and house, and medicine, and stuff. But I'm going to be depressed and grouchy and even kinda mean because everything has _gone to shit_ in the past two years—_sorry_—and I don't want to hear a bunch of people, who I _don't even know what they look like_, tell me 'we're here for you Isaac,' while I gush about my problems."

She took a breath, one of those sad, remember-when-he-was-little-and-I-didn't-have-these-problems kind of breaths, and said.

"Isaac. Understand this: I am not belittling your grief. I'd gotten used to having Hazel come around here too. I liked her a lot. Really. But, honey, it's been three months and you never—"

"Exactly Mom," I interrupted. I was still tucked in a ball on the bed, not facing her any more, but, rather, speaking into my pillow. "_Three months_. It'd be, admittedly, a problem after a year or something, but what exactly am I supposed to do right now?"

"Go to Support Group and please your mother?"

"Do you know the looks I'll get when I go in there!?" (Mercifully, she did not say the obvious, "Do _you_?" line.) 'There goes Isaac,' they'll be thinking. 'He's lost _another_ one, we should pat him on the shoulder to make him feel better.' Then these hands will start coming in out of nowhere and they won't leave me alone and—"

"You won't be alone," Mom interrupted, and there was something of a smile in her voice that made me stop to listen. "And you won't be targeted for getting all that "consoling,"(Another thing I've learned since The Gouge: You don't need eyes to be aware of air quotes.)

"_What_?" I muttered. "What is this?"

"I'm not sending you to Patrick's support group," she said, and there was an air to her voice as if she was gearing up for a punch line. "I'm sending you to _Mrs. Lancaster's_. In fact, she invited you, and she'll be here in five minutes to pick you up, so put on something that's not pajamas, brush your teeth-slash-hair, and clean your face."

Leaving me to stew in that information (probably with a smug smile on her face) my mother got up and made her way to the door. _Click_, that was the door opening, _creek_, her stepping on the hardwood just outside my room, then a _shuffle_, then a _pause_, then a hard _thwack_ above my head, and the ceiling fan stopped squeaking.

"Get dressed," she said again, shutting the door. "And bring my shoe when you come."

I only curled my body tighter, considering my position as far as still playing the Ornery Teenager Card, but I knew it was hopeless.  
_  
So_, Mrs. Lancaster had a support group now.  
_  
So_, Mrs. Lancaster had invited me.  
_  
So_, Mrs. Lancaster was coming to pick me up.  
_  
So_, Mrs. Lancaster would probably want to talk to me in the car.

I groaned again and almost wished Mom hadn't fixed the fan so that I'd be justified in noisily throwing something against a surface.  
_  
So_, Hazel had died three months before.  
_  
So_, I was sad. And bitter. And in total anguish. And inconsolable. And whatever else the therapists had said as they danced around the word 'depressed.' Whatever it was, they were right; I was miserable.

But now—_now!_—Hazel's mother was being constructive and helpful and efficient and kind and starting her _own support group_. And how exactly was I supposed to tell that mother, "I'm sorry, but no, your child is dead and it's still the time to be upset about that. Excuse me, I think I ought to cry again?" According to the conventions of cancer kids, as Hazel herself would have put it, the ones Left Behind after a cancer kid Moves On, are supposed to valiant in the face of grief, strong under duress, gentle despite their anger, basically be what Mrs. Lancaster was being. And how was I to tell her "no, I refuse, I'd rather mope and wallow in self-pity?"

Groaning for a final time as I came to the conclusion that I was, in fact, _stuck_; I uncurled my body and rose to my feet, feeling some of the blood painfully start flowing back into my clenched legs. I made my way around the room with limited stumbling, pulling clothes from where I had specifically put them (so that I knew which was which) and hoped I didn't clash so royally that people would be sorry for the blind kid who couldn't even dress himself. I combed my hair into something less chaotic than usual, stuck a pea-size dollop of toothpaste on my tongue, and washed my face off.

To complete the picture, I flumped back onto the bed again, pulled a small box off my dresser table, and held it in my lap. This was the part I always hated. The box held my two glass eyes, their purpose being that if someone was standing at _just_ the right angle and managed to see _just_ behind my sunglasses, they wouldn't be freaked out on the off chance that my eyelids fluttered and there would, obviously, be nothing there.

The glass eyes were unbe_liev_ably stupid and were put in entirely for other peoples' peace of mind. Apparently, if the indisputably blind kid has _glass_ eyes, it is easier to pretend that he is not, in fact, blind, and the world is, in fact, an all-around nice, healthy place. Passerbys will not be guilted into feeling grateful for their innate gifts, but allowed to take advantage of them as carelessly as they please. Never mind, of course, that _I_ thought the eyes were uncomfortable, the world wanted me to appear healthy, and thus, I appeared healthy.

Four minutes passed—I kept pressing a button on my alarm clock to tell me the time—and right at the five minute mark I heard a car pull into the drive.

"Isaac?" Mom was back. I walked over to her, kicking my cane up into my hand as I went, and she kissed me on the forehead when I reached her.

"I didn't find your shoe," I said. (I hadn't really searched for it.)

"It's okay. I see it."

"Okay."

"This'll help," she said. "Support Group is good."

"Sure," I replied. "Love you Mom." And I went downstairs to meet Mrs. Lancaster.

She was waiting for me at the door and once she'd led to me to her car and helped me in without hitting my head, she said, "Isaac, I'm contractually bound to ask you how you're doing." Her voice sounded kind of tired and sad.

I smiled slightly and said, "And I'm contractually bound to answer, 'Hanging in there.' You?"

"Hanging in there." She revved up the car and we backed out.

"Apparently, we meet at a church," she said after a moment, once we were on the road. "And I have no more information on the locale other than that."

"Sounds like an adventure."

"Doesn't it though?"

"Is it the first time you've done this?"

"Yep."

"Any idea who's going to be there?"

"Nope. I just put out in the email that I was doing this and that it would be an alternative to other forms of support group that people might have experienced in the past."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I will not sing songs or use puppets."

"Much obliged."

"You're welcome." She sighed. "Hazel would gleefully murder me if she found out I was sugar-coating anything. I don't plan to." Ah. So _that_ would be the course of action. We were allowed to address the elephant in the car. Not that I really wanted to.

"Was that in the email? The no puppet rule?"

"I used bigger words. Tried to stay respectful to that sort of thing. But yes, I said so."

"So the kids that come won't be, you know, normal cancer kids? They'll be the rare few who don't actually like sugar-coating?"

"Is that okay?"

"Yeah, just..." I sighed and turned to her. (I've learned this since The Gouge too. People like it when I look at them to talk, even if I'm not _actually_ looking. I think it makes a point when I do bother.) "Mrs. Lancaster I'm about to say something, and as an adult you will be contractually bound to tell me not to say or do the thing I am about to say."

"I think we're beyond that, Isaac."

"Oh, okay. Alright. Thanks. But, ah, here at Support Group-don't make me make friends."

"_Isaac_—"

"_Ah ah ah_, no, you said you wouldn't. I refuse to make friends with another cancer kid. There will not be a Five."

"Five?" I could tell that it slipped out and she hadn't meant to ask the question so bluntly by the way she made a little breathy noise right after. I didn't mind. She was, after all, a support group leader now. I was allowed to say stuff like this.

"Five," I repeated quietly. "Caroline Mathers was One. She was Gus' girlfriend and she called me "Isaac the Cyclops" once every twenty seconds and we were never super close but she was the first one I knew to officially _leave_ because of cancer.

"Two was Monica. You know the story there, I assume."

"In detail. Sorry."

"Don't worry. It sucked at the time, but don't worry. Three was Gus."

"And Four was Hazel."

"Yes ma'am."

She sighed again.

"Fair enough, Isaac the Cyclops," she said. "You don't need a Five. But don't just sit there the whole time, for my sake, because heaven knows I'll be nervous and want some sort of familiarity to engage in."

"Fair enough," I replied.

She made another little breathy noise that kind of sounded like a smile.

"Isaac, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship," she said.

"Ditto," I replied.

She did the breathy smile noise again.

* * *

Weeks went by. It felt kind of good to get back into a routine, Support Group being the catalyst that got me back to eating meals at regular times and sleeping more like a human being and less like a sloth. I got dressed in the mornings, combed my hair, came out of my room to talk to people, even messed around with Graham sometimes. Stopped hiding so I could cry once a day. Mrs. Lancaster was the real key. She drove me to and from Support Group everyday, partly to give my parents a break, but mostly, as I guessed, because she liked having me in the car.

We talked about normal stuff, like movies and music and late night comedy shows but a lot about Hazel and sometimes about Augustus too. I hadn't been there when Hazel died, though I'd been hanging around at the hospital for the week leading up to it. Mrs. Lancaster filled me in, crying a little and unashamedly there in the car, but addressing it without pretending like it was glorious or particularly special. I appreciated that.

Hazel's lungs had filled up again in her sleep a week before, she choked, she was quiet, she was unconscious, she was taken to the hospital, she was on life-support, they pulled the plug after a few days. The last time I'd actually hung out with her was to play blind-guy video games and talk about how the next _Max Mayhem_ book was coming out soon. Then she was in the ICU. Then she was dead.

I cried a lot (more than the laws of masculinity allow in fact, but that was the least of my worries,) stayed in my room a lot more, and my parents graciously gave me my space. To be honest, I was going through the same motions as I had when Gus died, except this time, there was no Hazel to talk to about it. Before, we had often gone and sat on his grave and eaten french fries and talked to him like he was sitting there with us, even though we both knew that was stupid. Now it was just me, and there is nothing as lonely as a lone survivor. With Mrs. Lancaster, it was good to know she was a lone survivor too.

And so as before with One, Two, and Three, I managed. I was miserable. I hated myself. I hated Four. I hated Cancer. But it was good talking to Mrs. Lancaster. She said she was kind of mad at Four (her Two) also. Then she said that was silly. Then she cried a little, there in the parking lot. Then she was alright. We got out of the car and went into Support Group.

I had decided she was a _much_ better leader than Patrick. She opened the very first day up by talking about Hazel and blatantly told us (there were eight other kids in there, as she told me later when I asked) that she didn't really know what she was doing and hoped that she would be as much a part of the group as the rest of us in talking about recovery. And after that, she didn't tell Hazel's story again. She told me she knew that kids would talk and new members would figure it out soon enough. I was glad about that. I didn't want Hazel to be the eternal icebreaker for a bunch of sick teenagers.

I managed. I was miserable. But I managed. And things did, in some small, slow degrees, get better.

We went on like this and it was four months since Hazel had died (going on the year-and-a-half mark for Gus) when I met Claire.


	2. Chapter 2

Woah, you guys I was NOT expecting this kind of reaction, thank you so much! Love and gratitude to all who reviewed, followed, or favorited: SamPotterIts, aussie gil 13, californiasun, name, Aclockworkkately, Knife Toot Heart, WinchesterHolmes, kingmaker51005, restoringforce, animelover2483. Special thanks to Loverofallthingsmusic for your support, and, as always, Ms. SkittlesGal the Great for being so wonderful. To my real life friends (never done _this_ before) Evelyn, yes, she's named for you. Hope you're having fun at the beach. (Say hi to Ben for me!) E. H. B., don't pee yourself when you figure out that Hazel worked out to be Four. (ermagersh irony!) Seriously, hold it in girl, that won't be pretty.

Love and butterbeer to all,

-Freddie

* * *

_**~50/50 for Five~**_

"You'll have to come over for dinner at some point," Mrs. Lancaster said as we made our way up the stairs to meeting place at church. "James and I, we insist."

"Uh-huh," I muttered. I was too busy focusing on counting steps (...twelve...thirteen...fourteen...) so I wouldn't trip at the top. (Another thing I've learned since The Gouge is the step count of nearly every staircase in the city. I have to, if I don't want to wind up on YouTube is "Blind guy falls over coming up to sidewalk, nearly hit by bus.")

"Really Isaac," Mrs. Lancaster was saying. (...seventeen...eighteen...one more...landing...) "Don't make me guilt you into this."

"Are you sure?"

"My house is annoyingly quiet. Please come blast Hectic Glow and slam doors."

I swallowed.

"And you said you wouldn't guilt me into it."

"So a yes?"

"Guiltily, yes."

She laughed. We reached the top and I swayed the cane back and forth before us till she nudged my hand and we turned into the Support Group room. The room was small, I could tell by the sound, and about five steps in we reached the circle of chairs set up in the middle.

"Four kids here already," she muttered. "Chase, Marta, Alex, and Leo."

"Thanks," I muttered back. I took the seat closest to the door and twirled my cane between my palms.

The other kids weren't so bad, I'd decided. I'd yet to talk to any of them other than the pleasantries but there weren't any crybabies and there weren't any tragic heroes making dramatic recoveries, so it was alright. One kid, Billy, came in sometimes. He was fourteen, had eye cancer (limited to one eye though, so he was fine,) and probably expected me to take him under my wing. He'd talked to me at the water fountain once about glass eyes and whether or not he should get one that looked like the bad guy from _Harry Potter_. I'd told him the blind shouldn't get advice from the blind. He didn't talk to me much after that.

"Sarah!" Mrs. Lancaster said from somewhere to my right, "Good to see you. How was the job interview? Ice cream shop, right?"

"Yeah..."

Mrs. Lancaster liked to engage us, was concerned with us as more than just Patients with Cancer, or as Souls to be Saved. Mostly just as kids coming to hang out. Also, as people came in, she liked to call out their names so I wasn't disoriented.

Understandably, I'd gotten closer to Hazel's mom in the four months since her death than I had in the year+ prior.

"Nicki, hi, haven't seen you in a while. Is that a new hat?"

"Yeah...Chemo started last week."

"I thought that was coming up. Nothing a bucket hat can't fix though; you'd make a good flapper."

Nicki chuckled and scooted the chair next to me as she sat down.

"Hey Isaac."

"Hi Nicki."

That was almost it for socializing. I'd say the same stuff to the kid who sat down on the other side and then I'd be done.

"Hi, I'm Alice. Alice Lancaster. You're new to our group?" Nicki shuffled a little to turn and get a good look at the new arrival.

"Yeah," said a girl's voice. "I heard there weren't any guitars or sing-along sessions here."

"You're in luck."

"Awesome. I'm Claire."

"Great. Take a seat, we're about to start and you can give us all a proper introduction."

"Thanks,"

The chair to my other side scooted.

"Hiya," said Claire. "I'm—_oh_." Ah yes, The Inevitable _Oh_. The _oh_, you're blind. _Oh_, you can't see that I'm holding a hand out to shake. _Oh_, you can't see anything at all. _Oh_, you're blind.

(To be fair, my own mother had done the '_oh'_ a few times in the first couple weeks. As had my father. As had my brother. As had Support Group Hazel. Even Gus maybe, once or twice. That didn't mean I had to like it.)

"I'm Isaac," I held out a hand and she took it.

"Claire. You've got cool glasses." I was kind of surprised by that. Most people pretend like I'm not wearing glasses, as though acknowledging them is painful for me. But to be honest, I kind of liked the glasses themselves. Decades ago, hyperbolically speaking, I picked them out with Augustus, before he had his relapse, before he even knew Hazel. We spent the whole day hitting all the high-brow sunglass bars till we found a pair I liked. My parents had said that, since I'd be wearing them _every single day_ soon on, it was worth spending good money for. Gus made sure we spent every last dollar.

"Thanks," I said honestly. "You've got a cool voice." She laughed.

"I've been working on it," she replied.

We fell silent and she started to talking to the boy on her other side, Gary. I ducked my head and pretended to be fascinated with the knob of my cane, though if anybody actually bothered to examine this, they'd know how stupid that was.

Minutes went by, people kept coming in, voices got louder, more chairs scooted, I waited for Mrs. Lancaster to start.

"Alright, alright," she said good-naturedly, and immediately the group quieted down. It went to show how much they respected that the newly-inflated group could be controlled so easily. How many had I heard come in? We were coming to seventeen now, weren't we? And that was only after a month. I was obligated to be sympathetic for Patrick the Eunuch, but I couldn't help but feel like it was victory for Mrs. Lancaster to beat him this way.

"So," she began, easing us into conversation. "Anybody watch any good movies lately?"

"Does _Batman & Robin_ count?" somebody asked. A couple others groaned.

"On _what_ scale is that a good movie!?" someone else asked.

"Be nice. You don't get turkeys much prettier than that."

"I finally saw _Butch Cassidy_."

"What's that?"

"I never really _got_ that movie..."

This is about where I tuned out, having either A) seen it, and not really interested in reviewing the plot again or B) _unable_ to see it and therefore left out completely. In any case, now, if I must must _must_ see a movie, I relied on my parents for the cinema experience; I would listen to the film while my mom narrated the visual elements that weren't obvious. If I'd done anything to get on her nerves that day, she liked to wait till the gunshots started going off to say, "Oh, I guess they're shooting at each other," or when the horses whinnied, "Looks like some of the horses made it," but then stay purposefully silent when a pair of characters let out with infuriating statements like, "Hey pal, are you seeing what I'm seeing?" and "I' never seen anything like it! How beautiful...!" and so on and so forth playing the pronoun game with each other till I was nearly shouting at the television, like a child with cartoons: "What!? What is it!? What's he got!?" Apparently, my antsiness was visible as well as highly amusing to the rest of my family and my brother Graham assured me that he'd taken a video and loaded it online, updating me daily with ludicrous statistics on how viral it had gone. Gotta love a kid who treats his blind big brother like any old regular, _sighted_, big brother.

I only got reinterested in the Support Group when Mrs. Lancaster opened the floor to discussing our afflictions and lives and struggles and stuff. To this day, I have no idea why I find these things so interesting. Why should I care what these kids have got? Why should I want to get to know them? Is it narcissism? Having the ability to tell myself, "well, at least, you're in better condition than those poor assholes?" Or some twisted notion of masochism so that I surround myself with as many "grenades" as possible, to quote my dear Four, Hazel.

Maybe I go just to figure out the answer to that question.

"Claire," Mrs. Lancaster said. "We've got a rule: if you're new, you go first."

"You also have to tell a really embarrassing story about yourself," Gary (I think it was Gary) piped up. "We all did it, it's part of initiation."

The assembled congregation giggled quietly, this being a totally bullshit rule, and a ruse that had surprisingly and amusingly worked a few times already on some of the other later additions to the group. (Another great thing about Mrs. Lancaster: she let things like that fly.)

But Claire didn't fall for it.

"Cute," she said, her voice smug. "But I'm not gonna spring."

"Worth a shot," Gary said good-naturedly.

Claire paused, I guess to smile at the joke, and then began.

"Kay. So. I'm Claire. I'm seventeen. And..." she let out a breath. "Gosh, I've done this so often for doctors when I'm sitting on the table. What do you want to know?"

"Likes and dislikes?" Somebody mercifully asked, putting off the obvious cancer question for second at least.

"I like movies," Claire offered. "Original right? Gosh, no, something better, what else is there? I like to cook, so long as the ingredients are weird—like star fruit and pickled potatoes and stuff. I like Scottish accents.

"Abilities/talents?" she asked herself, getting into the rhythm of it. "Not a bunch. I spill things on myself all the time. My dreams have musical scores, if that's even cool.

"Obsessions/hobbies?" It seemed as though she was now treating this like a live questionnaire. "I'm in love with capybaras, which are basically giant guinea pigs. My older brother got his pilot's license last year, so my favorite past time is definitely helicopter riding. I wish I lived in the 20's, regardless that they had no cancer-preventive machines or medicines or anything then." There was a collective intake of air then, as if this question was all that actually mattered. For a lot of these kids though, it _was_, they most definitely being of the narcissistic, well-at-least-I'm-in better-condition-than-this-poor-asshole mold. But again, to be fair, who could blame them?

"I've got kidney cancer," Claire said, bleeding into discussing the diagnosis she had probably been fed a billion times over. "Which is one of the more time-consuming and lethal brands of The Big C. That basically boils down to me getting my fake-kidneys drained of blood-trash two to to three times a week at the hospital. More if I eat something like a Cheetoe, which tends to build stuff up quickly in the blood. So I end up eating a lot of baby food. Credit where credit is due though, I've lost twenty-five pounds already. Thanks cancer." There was a pause which I filled with my imagined her, a now very much emaciated imagined her, shrugging. "Then there's..." She trailed off.

"What?" somebody asked.

Claire sighed.

"Guess it wouldn't be fair to not say," she muttered. "...I've got a 50/50 shot. At getting out of this."

Dead silence.

They were all thinking the same thing I was: I am not going near this girl. No way. No how. Oh sure, the expectation in Support Group was that, if you were coming, you were dying; but some kids were dying less than others, and they were the rare few who made friends. A 50/50 shot, among the cancerite community, does not let you sit at with cool-kids. (Which is to say, the not-doomed-kids.)

"Not the best of chances then," Mrs. Lancaster said quietly. Claire let out a small laugh that didn't fool anyone for a second.

"But not the worst either," she said candidly. "I'm not dead. But I'm not free. I'm in school, cause they think it's worth it, but I could also just be wasting my final months or years studying for tests on Calculus and stuff. And then I've got a bucket list, but there's no immediate pressure to finish them all so I'm just...stuck in limbo."

"Purgatory sucks don't it?" said Nicki, offering sympathy, but carefully to not include camaraderie in her gift. It's called Support Group, not The Circle of Friends, for a reason. "I've got breast cancer. 40/60 chance."

"In your favor?" Claire asked, her tone strictly curious.

"Yeah."

A growl: "Lucky bitch."

I'll admit, even I laughed with the others, and soon the floor had been ceded to Nicki who began rehashing the latest episode in her story with early adult breast cancer, the ups and downs of her new chemo therapy, and how her sister had already Sharpied all over her newly balded head. She then took her hat off to show the group, which received laughs, but no one narrated what the drawing was and I didn't ask.

We bounced around the circle, delivering humorous anecdotes of idiotic nurses, touching dramas of weeping parents, bad news of turns for the worse but hope on the horizon with new treatments, et cetera et multa.

"Isaac?"

I jumped. It was Mrs. Lancaster. She'd yet to directly speak to me during meetings. The others knew we carpooled, but she kept her distance once a session started; I guess cause she thought I'd go into TV-teenager mode and bat her off. I let out something articulate then like,

"Mm?"

"I don't think you've shared with the group yet."

I tipped my sunglasses down at her and raised my eyebrows without opening my eyelids—I'd skimped on installing the eyes that morning, so it was the very best "excuse me?" face I could provide. But she wasn't having any of it.

"Wouldn't you like to share with the group?"

I coughed, but nobody else volunteered in my place and she didn't elect anyone either.

"Er," I said. "Okay. Fine. Alright. Hi. I'm Isaac. I had eyes. Then eye cancer. Then they got rid of both." Appreciative titterings from the assembled.

"That was all a year and a half ago, give or take. Now I use a cane, wear shades, and am yet to get a scary German shepherd as a seeing eye dog, but as soon as I can fake my mom's signature, that will be in the works."

More laughs. This was kind of fun.

"I've been NEC since then. Don't be jealous, I can't tell you how many times I've stubbed my toes on furniture that's decided to move around in the middle of the night. When my brother's mad at me, the hallways turn into mine fields of side tables and ottomans."

Yet more giggling. I was looking at a career in stand up by now.

'Looking' in the most metaphoric of ways of course.

"That's kind of it," I said. "It's dark in here, and before you ask, yes, the color I see _is_ black. A burning question for all of you, I know.

And then the rest, the more recent stuff, I guess most of you know about. ...I don't really want to talk about it now."

I had a feeling Mrs. Lancaster had meant for me to talk about Hazel. Or even Gus. Just friends dying or exiting from your life stage left in general. So I threw it in there and it kind of stung but heavens knew she got over herself and talked about it every now and then when she was able so that she didn't seem to lord her health above the sick or to be squandering in the pit with us either. (Again, points to Mrs. Lancaster.)

"Anything else Isaac?"

Something must have really caught her attention to be pursuing the question so hard.

"Yeah," I said. "I guess, loneliness doesn't suck. If the time ever comes for you, if somebody dies I mean, don't freak out over the lonely part."

Falser words were never spoken.

* * *

When the whole thing wrapped up and people started trickling out, somebody caught Mrs. Lancaster by the door and asked to talk to her about something. Apparently, a treatment had gone wrong and the guy had yet to break the news to his brother in college. Quite reasonably, she sent me to wait for her on a bench.

I let myself out, found a bench in the little church courtyard, sat down, and began twirling my cane again between my palms. To pass the time, I started replaying songs in my head. I was kind of absorbed and didn't hear a person coming towards me until they sat down with a sigh.

"Uh," I said, a little nervous (I always get a little nervous when Unidentified Persons come so close.) "Hi?"

"Hi. It's Claire."

"Claire-with-the-cool-voice-Claire?" I didn't know why I was continuing the conversation; the goal of support group was to be as blatantly anti-social as possible.

"The very same, Shades." Honestly though, that was a good line. On me. And she was a girl. I found myself resolving to ask Mrs. Lancaster how cute she was. And then...  
_  
50/50._

My blood ran cold.

That little phrase started floating around in my head and the resolve shattered. 50/50. That meant she was still sick—still very sick probably, maybe even trapped into carting a machine around with her like Hazel. Maybe she was bald. Maybe she was weak. She was definitely dying. At least, 50% dying. And while before, maybe after One and Two, possibly even Three, I wouldn't have minded, I'd wised up after Hazel made herself Number Four. She'd called herself a grenade and, with the utmost affection, I couldn't agree with her more. Grenades had been blown, shrapnel had been launched, and it was currently buried deep within me. And it wasn't going to work it's way out anytime soon.

"Alright then," I said to her, and though I wasn't cold, my tone was decidedly frosty.

Didn't faze the chick.

"So a German shepherd?" She said. "I always wanted a dog, but Mom insisted on nothing bigger than gerbil. What'd you name him?"

"Hm?"

"The shepherd. What would you name him? It would have to be something either terrifying or totally adorable, like Slasher or Fifi." It was hard to not laugh at that, but I managed.

"Listen, Claire," I waffled. "Not to be rude, but..." She sighed.

"And yet that phrase is so conducive to rudeness," she said, still good-natured, even cheerful.

"Okay well..." Why was this _hard_? Why was pushing pain away _hard_? I swallowed and let out the next sentence. "I have a strict policy to not make friends with kids in support group...can only do small talk and stuff."

"Wow, okay, so you're actually kind of an asshole."

"Geez, I was just being nice out of pity, you douche."

"You're weird, I'm leaving."

"Oh, alright, that's fair. I'll leave you alone."

All of these she did not say; and it would have been so much more merciful if she had. Instead, she did not get mad. Instead, she was not annoyed. Instead she made one of Mrs. Lancaster's breathy, amused smile noises.

"Well aren't you the shrewd little realist," she said. There was something in her voice that made me imagine her give a wry twist of the lips when she said this. Kind of an Augustus-Waters-y grin. I pushed the thought away.

"You get to a point where you realize...you have to be." I said. "In cancer, shrewdness is not your enemy. I've already—" I stopped and decided to not tell her about One through Four. That was probably more personal than was healthy. She breathy-smiled again and then said,

"Well then, Isaac the Realist, what are the parameters of our small talk?"

"Huh?"

"You said you only do 'small talk and stuff' and my mom just told me on the phone that she's stuck at work and may take half an hour. So, I cordially ask, can I please small-talk to you? You know, with parameters?"

Credit where credit is due, she was funny. Witty. Gus would have liked her. Hazel would have been annoyed about the non-terminal-ness of her cancer, but probably would have liked her too.

"Okay. Alright. Well, for starters, parameters means no funny nicknames."

"Alright then Isaac." Conspicuous lack of 'the Realist." I was more comfortable now.

"And you can only ask or answer questions with one-phrase answers."

"Tight-lipped, FAQ-esque stuff then."

"Exactly."

"Fair enough," she conceded. "So. What's your favorite movie?"

The last thing I'd watched (_Ha_-ha, yes "watched") with Hazel was _The Avengers_, a good, old-fashioned, (special effects aside) flick where the bad guy is obvious and the heroes win. Nothing special, but it was an Augustus-Waters-certified, glory-or-death, never-take-no-for-an-answer film and I respected that.

"_The Avengers_," I said, not really thinking about it. "You?"

"_The Princess Bride_," she said immediately. A big fan then. I'd seen it before on television a couple times, years before: funny, entertaining, pretty movie.

"Oh yeah, that's a good one."

"The _best_!" she drawled. "I can quote the whole thing, start to finish. 'Course I'm sure you're interested in that ...What's your favorite book?"

"Er, can I do a series?"

"Sure."

"_Max Mayhem_. All the way." _Max Mayhem_, having been there for me since I was in the fourth grade, was not a series you could grow up with. It stayed there, forever, for fourth graders. That being said, those books will, for all eternity, be my favorites. Ever.

"Oh _Max Mayhem_!" Claire said. "My little brother reads those." And then this sentence: "They're pretty good."

Exception: Hazel Grace Lancaster, who only read them for her boyfriend; no female in my entire life career has _EVER_ read _Max Mayhem_. Never come _CLOSE_ to knowing about Max Mayhem. And "they're pretty good," was indicative of holding more knowledge than just having a brother who read them.

"Which is to say that _you_, in fact, read them?"

She was silent for a moment. "Kay, you caught me. My favorite of 'ems the fourth: _Max Mayhem and the No Moon Night_."

"So you're a closet Mayhemian!?"

She giggled a little. "I guess so."

"We're gonna work on that," I would have said. "I'm gonna make you proud of it," I would have said. "Let's go to the bookstore opening night together 'cause I was gonna go with Hazel and I don't want to go alone now," I would have said. But then her statistic—50/50—started jumping around in my head again as well as the fact that her mom was just a half hour away and then she would leave and then it would be over and then I shouldn't—wouldn't!—_couldn't!_—ever talk to her again and so instead I said, "Alright. That's okay. ...What's _your_ favorite book?"

"_The Hot Air Balloon_."

"Never heard of it."

She huffed.

"I know. You probably never will again; _nobody_ knows it. It's pretty obscure but _so_ so good. It's about these two little girls, sisters, who make a deal to sell their father's car for a hot air balloon. They take it and go all over the world and have all these adventures with magic and evil and rescues and chases and escapes and they solve this one crime in Italy and, spoiler alert?"

"Is there an audiobook?"

"No."

"Then it's not like I'm gonna read it."

She took in a big breath, as if what she was about to say was something huge.

"It turns out they were really in their abusive father's basement the whole time," she said. "In order to cope, they made the story up with each other, so much so that they both believed it. When the social workers find them, in the end, they're sent to a mental facility, and the whole way there they think the car is their balloon."

Not in the least what I had expected.

"Sounds depressing," I said.

"Not really," she said quickly, rushing to defend her book. "I mean, think. The idea that if you believe something hard enough, then you can make it real? At least to you? 'S not a bad message." I felt the bite of severe disappointment—so she was one of _those_ kids. The ones that coped by living in a fairy world. She wasn't _actually_ cheerful, it was just a facade that she, like her characters, had convinced herself was real.

"So it's all about false hope," I said, not meaning to sound so sour but it came like that anyway.

She snorted sardonically and then said these self-effacing words that, much as they incinerated the facade theory, for me, stung bitterly:

"You're talking to the girl with the 50/50 shot. That's halfway between "it'll all be over soon" and "get over yourself and accept it." What _else_ am I supposed to hold on to?"

And just like that, it was thrown in my face yet again. Caroline, Monica, Gus, Hazel, and Nope. Nopenopenope, simple is that, I was not going to put myself through this again. It was a bad enough idea to start the "tight-lipped FAQ" session with her.

'I need to shut up now,' I thought. 'Shut up, wait for Mrs. Lancaster, and never speak to her again.' So _what_ she did have better chances than the others! My luck had yet to prove favorable and my association with her so far was probably all the Fates needed to tip the balance against her. I could just hear it: "Oh look, Isaac is socializing again. Better kill her off now!"

But, inexplicably, I heard myself say

"My favorite song is "Itch," by the Hectic Glow. You?"

"Ah, wow, so many..." she trailed off to think and I filled that time to tell myself how stupid I was. "The Parting Glass?" she said after a moment. "It's an old Irish song. _Gorgeous_."

"That," I said, and my voice betrayed me again. "Is quite weird," it came out sounding like an appreciative compliment.

"I know," she replied in the same tone, chuckling a little. "What's your favorite...video game?

At this, despite whatever misgivings I had, I couldn't help but to burst out with a hearty, "You _game_!?"

"Yeah, I got into with my little brother. For real this time, though, he's not just a front." There was a smile in her voice, I knew it. A sideways, glance-at-you-from-the-corner-of-the-eye smile that was in no way Augustus Waters but entirely her own. "He plays a lot of Madden and I usually just jump in with him. Personally, I prefer indie gaming. What about you?

What to I meant to say was, "Nothing much." Or, "You probably haven't heard of it." Or, "Go away now please, I'm tired of shrapnel damage." But what came out was, "Have you ever played a blind-guy game?"


End file.
